


Sempiternal

by chocopieyj



Category: GOT7
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Eventual Smut, Insomnia, Jaebeom Travels In Time, Light Angst, M/M, Not That Bad But Be Warned, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Substance Abuse, Time Travel, Youngjae Is Rich Boy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24159151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocopieyj/pseuds/chocopieyj
Summary: Youngjae waits for Jaebeom.Jaebeom has a way to find Youngjae even through time.
Relationships: Choi Youngjae/Im Jaebum | JB
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	1. Prologue.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the book "The time traveler's wife".
> 
> Years, my friends, I'll be thinking in this story for years and now I finally could see it come to life. 
> 
> Quarantine has its advantages I think. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Youngjae looks at the street through the glass, lost watching people come and go, trying not to think of anything.

He’s tired.

It’s late and he hasn’t slept for what seems like centuries, the dark circles under his eyes are the evidence that he hasn’t been sleeping for more than a couple of hours a day for weeks, they’re heavily marked with a greenish shadow over his extremely pale skin, and he imagines himself on the beach, in the blazing sun trying to regain some of the color he has lost in recent months.

He sighs, blurring the glass of the window where his forehead is leaned, his eyes keep busy following the steps of people as they walk in front of him. The remnants of the rain have left puddles on the sidewalk and he mentally counts the people who step on the water and make it splash.

There are a couple of kids who jump into the puddles on purpose and they look like having fun, although their mother behind them tries to stop them to no avail - that makes him smile softly.

The phone in his pocket rings, interrupting the quiet peace of the coffeeshop, it’s empty except for the part-time employee at the counter so there is really no problem but he rushes to answer, when he sees the screen he fixes at the time, it is almost midnight - the new year is about to start.

"Hello." He responds, sounding more tired than he wants to appear. 

"Youngjae-ah! Where are you?" Mark's voice on the other end of the line sounds concerned, Youngjae regrets having left the party like that but he didn’t feel like being there.

"Capsoul." He answers dryly, that coffeeshop is one of his favorites places to be so it’s not difficult for his friend to locate where he is.

"Are you drinking coffee?!" Mark exclaims, worry turns into scolding in less than a second, "You can’t cure your insomnia and the first thing you can think of is drinking coffee?"

"I'm having tea, hyung." He clears up quickly, but it doesn't matter if he drinks tea, decaf, hot milk, natural supplements - none of those home remedies help him sleep. "I'm sorry I left the party, the music gave me a headache."

"It’s fine, Jae. Go home, okay?” The worry comes back, "I don't want you to be outside this late."

Youngjae smiles, “Hyung, the streets are full, everyone is celebrating. Don’t worry."

He hears Mark sigh, "Okay, but still... I'd rather you be in your apartment, I'll go there to keep you company, okay?"

"You don't need to stay awake with me again."

"I'm not going to sleep early anyways, at the party or with you, I prefer to be with you."

"Thanks, Mark hyung."

He actually wants to ask him to leave him alone, but Mark isn't going to listen to him so he lets him through. Mark has the impression that when one of his friends keeps him company he sleeps better but the reality is that he can’t sleep alone or accompanied - well, sometimes it nice that Mark stays with him, though he hates that he forces himself not to sleep only for his sake.

"Go home, I'll catch you there."

"Alright."

"Try to... sleep." Mark hesitates, Youngjae knows he feels it’s a silly thing to say to someone with insomnia but Youngjae doesn’t mind, he always follows his advice, tries to sleep but never succeeds. He wishes his words were magic and a magnet for sleep.

"See you later, hyung." He says softly and they hang up, he drinks the remaining tea in his already cold cup in one gulp, he says goodbye to Jangjun - the barista, and as soon as he sets foot outside the cold soaks his bones, he wishes he had brought a thicker coat.

He walks slowly, and in the distance he can hear the screams of people celebrating, he looks at his watch and it strikes 12. It’s New Year.

He smiles tiredly when he sees all the texts from his friends wishing him a good year and promises in his mind that he’ll answer them all when he gets home. He looks at the sky and choose a star randomly to make a wish - it's very simple, he just wants to be able to sleep better.

Turning on the street that takes him straight to his apartment building, he sees a man walking quickly to the other side, his head down, and he's mumbling something. When he comes across Youngjae he doesn't seem to even see him, his shoulders bump hard and Youngjae turns around but the man doesn't stop, he keeps walking in a hurry and it's obvious he doesn't notice when his wallet falls out of his pocket.

Youngjae yells at him but the man either doesn’t hear or ignores him and Youngjae runs towards him to try to stop him, he lifts his wallet from the floor and calls the man again but he has already turned around in the next block and when Youngjae follows him, he can no longer see him, he gets lost among a group of guys with weird costumes and beers in hand, shouting ‘Happy New Year!’ at the top of their lungs.

The boy grimaces and goes the way he came, the headache is returning and it’s not nice, he wants to get home and sleep. He wants to sleep. It’s as if his mind is telling him 'if you were at home, lying down, you could finally fall asleep'.

But he knows very well that as soon as he puts his head on the pillow, sleep will go away like nothing and he’ll spend hours turning over the mattress trying to turn his brain off. Still, he rushes to his apartment, doesn't even bother to change his clothes, and lies down on the couch, closing his eyes immediately.

He doesn’t know how long he stays like this, it must be at least an hour but no, it’s too late to catch the sleep and he hates once again the whole universe or whatever, that’s preventing him from sleeping like he must be.

Reluctantly he gets up from the sofa, drinks a glass of ice water, and changes into his night clothes. He lingers on his phone and replies to the well-wishes messages and one from Mark who tells him that he may come to his apartment later. It’s fine, he'll be awake anyway and Mark doesn't have to be with him when he can have fun with Jinyoung - his prospective boyfriend even though they haven't formalized anything yet. Maybe today is the night they do it.

He starts playing video games but he’s too tired to concentrate, he loses immediately and prefers to put any movie on Netflix, anyway he’s not going to pay attention to it.

He sits on his windowsill and looks down at his street, it's empty, and he entertains himself by counting the headlight beams with the voices on the movie as background: one, two, three, four, six, broken, nine, ten, twelve. No, eleven, did he skip a number? There’re always ten. 

One, two, three, he counts again, he rubs his eyes and they start to close on their own, it seems that fatigue is finally overcoming and a small voice in his head tells him to go to bed, but he ignores it, he just wants to sleep, he doesn't care where.

He’s already almost there, but with narrowed eyes he can see down on the street, a figure running in the middle of the street that draws his attention, reminds him of something and that was it. That moment of distraction awakens his brain enough to lose sleep once again.

"Shit!" He growls more in frustration than anger, and hits his forehead on the window pane. He hates this. He hates not sleeping and he’s at nothing to go back to pills - the real remedy to knock him out all night.

He hates not hiding any in a drawer between his clothes when Mark and Jackson decided to step in and take them away, and he hates having agreed to it. He needs it, he needs to sleep, or he’s going to start hallucinating men running down the street.

He frowns and focuses his eyes, he’s not hallucinating, another figure runs through his street, it seems that is the same person doing it again, because of the clothes, but it’s weird, there’s someone running at that hour over and over at the same place? It doesn't look like sportswear so he doubts he’s working out.

His brain clicks then, and he gasps. What reminded him earlier is the man who collided with him, the one with the lost wallet.

He gets up quickly and searches in the pockets of his coat, the wallet is nothing special, it’s black and small, it doesn’t have a zipper or anything to keep it closed. He unfolds it to see the content, surely there’s some identification or a driving license that can tell him who the owner is so he can return it.

What he finds, however, gives him goosebumps.

Is he.

The first thing he sees when opening the wallet is he himself  smiling at the camera, a Polaroid dated 2027 - seven years from now.


	2. Chapter 1.

_February 2020. Youngjae is 18 years old._

He stares at the photograph, as he has for the past couple of weeks. He analyzes it, observes each corner carefully, but nothing means anything to him.

In the background he can see a huge tree, its leaves seem to move so he imagines a windy day but nothing more. He doesn't recognize anything, he hardly recognizes himself like that and he asks himself for the millionth time if is really him the one he sees in the photograph. Maybe it's someone else, everyone has 7 twins lost to the world, or so they say. And the date, well maybe they modified the camera time to play a prank.

But he knows, deep down, that this smiling boy is him, he knows it but it doesn't scare him. Actually, he’s very curious.

How did he become that person in the photo? He would be 25 that year, but he looks much younger than now, even - his skin, although still pale, has much more color than now, his cheeks are pink and there are no purple bags under his eyes. It seems that he gained weight too, right now he looks like a walking corpse and there he looks... happy. That smirk he presumes is blinding, he doesn't even remember the last time he smiled like that.

Perhaps it was before his parents' divorce, when he was forced to choose who he wanted to live with and all he could do was run away into town on his own. He was only 16, what did them expect him to do? Now his already bad relationship with both of his parents worsened to the point of being merely monetary.

Being a rich boy has its advantages, he supposes - his father bought him a nice apartment in the center of Seoul, he’s proud that his youngest son wanted to become ‘independent’ so young, both of them send him exorbitant amounts of money to make sure that he doesn’t lack anything, to keep him happy, and cover all his expenses while they go about their business.

Youngjae is just one weight less in their lives and they think that as long as they pay, they don't have to worry about him.

Youngjae stopped caring at some point, his family had never been one and even living with them he was always alone, neglected by his parents, hated by his older siblings and raised by the babysitter.

Now he has Mark and Jackson, who have been a better family to him than his own, they are more than his best friends, they are his true brothers.

He looks at the photograph again, he’s obsessed with it. He wants to find the man who threw it away but the wallet was completely empty except for that photo so he has no idea who he might be.

He has walked by the same streets for weeks, at the same time, paying attention if he sees a man who reminds him of the man walking in a hurry, he spends whole nights looking out the window to see if he runs by again.

He’s not very lucky, and he starts to convince himself that this is stupid, that Polaroid must be of someone else, the prank theory and his lost twin seems the most logical, because the other option is impossible.

Maybe the boy in the picture doesn't even look like him, he's hallucinating for lack of sleep, he only sees what he wants to see.

He doesn't mention to any of his friends about the lost wallet, he keeps it a secret to himself and when they ask him why he looks worse than before he only replies that insomnia has gotten worse - which is not a lie, if he sleeps an hour at night he’s lucky.

And he blames them a little too, they’re the ones who forced him to leave the pills after all, he was fine before that, if he took them it was because he needs them, obviously. But Jackson believes that a good exercise routine and natural supplements will help him in the same way, Mark supports him only because he was the first to mention ‘addiction’ making Jackson obsessed about it.

And there Youngjae is, letting the pills go, carefully following through on his friend’s health plans and keeping the promise not to take meds again, because he was really hoping they could help him, but they can't. The only thing that’s going to make him sleep is having a fucking cocktail of pills at dinner.

*****

"Youngjae!" Jackson's loud voice echoes in his ear, snapping him out of his reverie.

"What?"

"You’re daydreaming again." Jackson complains to him, apparently he was telling him something but Youngjae’s lost in the conversation.

"I can't dream asleep," Replies the boy, rolling his eyes, sometimes he gets a little tired of the energy Jackson forces him to have with him as if that would make him sleep. It just tires him and it's worse, "This is the best I can do."

Jackson frowns, it’s too obvious that his friend is upset but he doesn’t mention anything because he knows that Youngjae’ll start to complain about the pills and he doesn’t want to have that conversation again - it’s enough that he follows his regimen without complaining most days.

"Mark hyung is buying food, do you want something?"

Youngjae shakes his head, resting over the table. Who would say that insomnia also affects appetite. Or maybe it's just his mind making a good excuse.

Jackson looks at him concerned, "Did you have breakfast? When was the last time you ate something?"

"Just before my first lecture? Hyung don't worry, I'm just not hungry." Youngjae responds by smiling softly to comfort him. It’s not necessarily true, but it’s not a lie either, he had a decaf coffee with a lot of sugar to wake him up, that counts as food, right?

Jackson nods but still insists that he eat something when Mark arrives with their lunch, and Youngjae gives in to make them feel calmer, he eats a little bit of everything, little bites that he swallows with difficulty and feels like his stomach is churning. It’ll pass, he says to himself, one day he’ll recover his appetite too and he’ll be better, his mind going to the photograph unintentionally. If he imagines it’s himself, surely his life will be better than now.

That day his classes end earlier than his two friends', so he waits for them in his favorite corner of the coffeeshop to go together to Jackson's dorm, his roommate won’t spend the night there and Jackson has prepared a movie night. Mark won’t go so they can skip the horror films he put on the list, which is a relief, neither of them is going to survive watching the kind of movies Mark enjoys alone.

While he wait, he receives a call that he doesn’t want to answer, but he feel compelled to do it, if he doesn’t answer now he’ll have to do it in a couple of hours or the next day, so he picks up his regular check-up call.

"Hello Youngjae, how are you?" He doesn’t have time to actually say something when the incoming voice starts to speak, he’s always in a hurry.

"Just right." He’s lying, his mother's assistant doesn’t need to know more than necessary.

"The President wants to know if you need anything? She sent you some money for this week, but if you want something special we can take care of it.”

"No, everything is..." he says but stops for a moment, "Well, there’s something..."

"Tell me." He imagines Yoon Hyukjin, his mother's personal assistant opening a notebook ready for any whim that comes to his mind.

And there’s only one thing he wants at that moment, he’s just one word away from having the sleeping pills he needs so urgently, Yoon Hyukjin will give him anything as soon as he asks for it, on the orders of his mother and it’s not difficult for the assistant of the president of a multinational company getting a simple bottle of pills.

Just one word, his friends don't have to know.

But then he imagines them with proud smiles, thinking that Youngjae is finally getting better when in fact it was the opposite. He doesn’t want to deceive them, they are the only ones who care about him and he really wants to improve and it’s not as if he couldn’t go to buy it by himself if necessary.

"Nothing, everything’s fine."

"Very well," answers the robotic man's voice, "Call me if you need anything, okay?"

"Yeah." He tells him and hangs up before he can mention something her mother told him to say, if she wants to say something to him, she can tell him herself, he doesn't really want to hear what she has to say anyway.

Some happy voices are heard then,as they enter the door, Youngjae automatically looks up to see a small group of 4 friends talking and laughing together, they approach the counter to place an order, one says he’ll order 4 Ice americano and one of them, tall and with very striking yellow hair, shouts that he wants a choco shake.

Youngjae doesn't listen to what the black-haired man replies, his attention is already fully occupied on one of the boys behind them, his eyes get completely lost on him - small eyes, wide shoulders, beautiful smile.

The boy feels his gaze on him and turns to see him too, when their eyes meet something inside Youngjae jumps, his brain is working a thousand times an hour. It feels that he has seen that boy somewhere, but at the same time he doesn’t recognize him. As if it had been in a dream.

The boy smirks and winks at him before turning his attention back to his friends, but Youngjae doesn't look away until they come out of the coffee shop, and he can't shake the feeling that he knows him from somewhere but can't remember where.

He squeezes his brain trying to think where he saw him, or why he cares so much. Maybe it wasn't him, he looks different or at least he thinks so. But he can't get him out of his mind all day, he thinks in his eyes, he has a deep and unforgettable look. If he had really seen him, he’s sure he wouldn’t have forgotten him, would he?

Well, it doesn't matter.

Jackson soon arrives and drags him out of there, they stop by the convenience store to buy popcorn, chips, soda, and a bunch of junk food that on a normal day Jackson would never approve of. But it's a special day, so he lets Youngjae buy pizza without complaining about how unhealthy that is as a nightly dish and picks the first movie of the night.

Jackson's dorm is small but cozy, Youngjae has always liked college dorms and while he sometimes wants to live in one - he' would be closer to his friends and maybe he wouldn't have to get up so early to get to class, he also values the privacy of his apartment too much, so moving has never been an option.

When they have everything prepared on the coffee table, the two wrap themselves in thick blankets in front of the living room television, they pay no attention to half of the movie because they’re too busy talking to each other, Youngjae laughs with some Jackson story that he would doubt its veracity if he wasn’t the one telling it and feel lively enough to eat a couple slices of pizza, which makes Jackson happy too.

They’re almost finishing the second movie when his friend falls asleep and he’s a little envious, he feels more and more tired but his body refuses to turn off. He watches two other movies alone, some very boring of the most voted that make you sleep but even that doesn’t work.

When Jackson wakes up it’s almost 4am, the younger is still staring at the tv screen though he’s no longer playing anything and Jackson feels very bad for him, and a bit guilty for falling asleep, he hugs him carefully stroking his hair.

"Close your eyes, Jae." He whispers slowly and the boy doesn’t have enough strength to refuse, he feels good, Jackson's fingers are playing with his locks but they spend a lot of time like that and he just can't sleep.

"Hyung, I need to sleep." He says like in a prayer, almost in a tearful complain, and he pushes away from the hug.

"Let's go to bed, you'll be better there."

"Do you still have the pills you took?"

Jackson hesitates but shakes his head and tries to convince him again that he’ll fall asleep just right having a natural herbal tea or a glass of hot milk and some slow music to sleep.

Youngjae closes his eyes in frustration, he suddenly feels like crying and he’s upset and extremely tired, “Please, hyung. I only need one. Do you know when was the last time I slept a bit? Two days ago. I haven't slept at all in two days. Please Jackson hyung, I need just one.”

"Just one?" The older boy grimaces, between doubtful and guilty.

"Just one."

At the end, he agrees. Youngjae hasn’t taken pills for several months now, when he and Mark intervened the boy was taking a bit too much and he was building resistance so then he was taking more and more and they both feared it was going to become a real problem. 

But he has succeeded, Youngjae promised that he wouldn’t take pills anymore and he did it alone without the help of anyone else. If he gives him just one, nothing will happen, right? It’s only to help him sleep faster.

"Don't tell Mark hyung." He warns him by giving him exactly one pill and Youngjae doesn’t complain, he takes it and adjusts himself in the couch, immediately closing his eyes in fear that the effect will pass so quickly that he’ll not be able to take advantage of it.

"Thanks hyung."

And that night he finally sleeps a little better and he dreams.

He dreams of the Polaroid of the future, a man walking at full speed that seems to chase him but then Youngjae is the one who chases him, he calls him but the man doesn’t answer and he runs to catch up with him but the man vanishes into nothing. Then he sees him again, he's sitting with his head down and can't see his face until he's very close. Oddly, he has the face of the coffeeshop boy.

*****

When he wakes up it’s 8am, he slept four hours uninterrupted and although it’s nothing much and he’s still tired, that’s enough for him to feel almost as new, he no longer has a headache and feels that he can eat a good slice of whatever Jackson is cooking for them for breakfast.

"Did you sleep well?" Jackson asks with a smile, although there is concern in his eyes.

"Very!" Youngjae exclaims smiling back at him, his friend is making pancakes, his special recipe for oatmeal and quinoa. He may feel a little guilty about eating a whole pizza almost on his own.

Jackson sighs, "Maybe it was a bad idea to take your pills away, we're just affecting you more."

"No hyung, it was fine. Maybe it was a little out of control. But sometimes I really need them. Could you... give me one sometimes? If you and Mark hyung control the doses it’ll be fine, right?

"We could do that but I don't know Jae, maybe you need to go to a real doctor?"

Youngjae shakes his head, “I'm fine. Also, those pills were prescribed by a doctor.”

"Okay, but promise you’ll go to a hospital and get a check up."

"I promise." Both of them know that maybe that won’t happen in the very near future, Youngjae already knows what they’ll tell him, he’s too young to have chronic insomnia and surely he only lies to get pills. It has happened to him before. But if that makes his friends feel better about managing his doses, he will.

Dreaming asleep it feels too good to do whatever it takes.

* * *

_February 2020. Youngjae is 18. Jaebeom, 28._

The night was freezing, Youngjae leaves his last class and his friends are already gone, Mark offers to walk him to his apartment but Youngjae refuses, there’s no point in going out in that weather. It’s still early so he walks to his apartment, thinking about a couple of assignments he has to get done and surely he has to stay up late to finish everything on time, but that won’t be a problem.

He walks in a hurry through the same streets as always, concentrating on just getting home when he sees him. The lost wallet man, he’s sure is has to be him because he’s dressed the same, black denim jeans, a rickety coat of the same color and a bucket hat up to the eyebrows. He’s walking in a hurry just like the last time and even when he didn’t see his face that last time, he knows it’s him.

"Hey!" He yells at him and the man stops, turns around and when he sees him, Youngjae opens his eyes widely. 

He's the guy from the coffeeshop, with those small eyes and sharp jaw, but now he seems much older than that day. There’s definitely something different about him.

The man smiles at him too sweetly, as if he was very happy to see him even though they don't even know each other, but the way he looks at him, seems that the man does know him and very well.

Youngjae freezes for a second, until the man turns around on the next corner and again walks away from him, but this time he reacts quickly enough and runs after him, calling him out.

But he’s not running away this time, when Youngjae catches up with him the man is walking towards him with a small pink and yellow bouquet in his hands, Youngjae notices that there’s a street vendor on that block selling flowers.

The man takes off his hat, his hair is a bit short and slightly wavy, and when he’s in front of him he smiles at him in that tender and loving way, he hands him the bouquet that Youngjae accepts without realizing it.

"How are you?" The man says to him and Youngjae finally snaps, "You didn't have to run after me, love."

"I have your wallet." The boy says without noticing the affectionate nickname or the flowers on his hands, more concentrated on the man - he notices some cute little moles under his eyebrow and piercings marks on his ears though he’s not wearing earrings.

He's definitely the cafe guy, or is his older brother because they look terribly alike but this man in front of him is definitely older.

The man frowns, "My wallet?"

“You lost it, in new year. It had no ID so I couldn't... "

“Oh! Oh... yeah, that." The man seems to remember something, and he covers his face with his hands for a second, sighing heavily, "How old are you?"

Youngjae thinks for a moment, like it's the weirdest question he's ever heard, "I’m 18. Who are you?"

The man seems to reflect silently and looks at the flowers he just gave him as if he had just made a big mistake, "My name is Jaebeom."

"So it's your wallet, isn't it?"

"Uhm, not... really but well, kind of."

Youngjae nods, he was right, this is the man who can answer his question about the strange photograph, he’s excited to finally quench his curiosity, "There’s a photo there."

The man - Jaebeom, frowns as if he already expected that question but didn’t want to answer it, but he has no choice now, "Yeah?"

"It looks like me." There are definitely better ways to express his doubts about that.

Jaebeom chuckles softly, and gently touches a strand of his hair, "That's because it's you, baby."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a side note, this isn't going to be like exactly as the storyline of the book but there will be reference I guess 
> 
> Oh, and if you have read it, the book jumps a lot between Clare's and Henry's sides of the story, and a lot of time jumps too.
> 
> This is just gonna follow Youngjae's time line and view (?) most of the time, but I'm adding the ages and years cause I think it cam be less confusing at least for me ahahahaha
> 
> But anyways, hope you enjoy as I am ;)


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